Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan dealt with questions over the weekend about marathon times along with those about Medicare. / AP photo

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Jack (Michael Keaton): Come on over here, Ron. Let me show you what I’m doing, taking advantage of some of the time off. To, uh, add a whole new wing on here. Gonna rip these walls out and, uh, of course rewire it.

Some things you say are just going to expose you for what you are. Or at least what you think you are. Or what you’re pretending to be.

Telling someone who understands how to remodel a house that you might go with 221 service — whatever it takes — means one thing: The crap factor is going to be high from this point forward. The characters on both sides of the doorstep in that scene from “Mr. Mom” knew it full well.

Growing up, my dad loved to warn us about the crap factor. Basically, it is the amount of stretch someone is typically willing to apply to the stories they tell about themselves and what they can do.

Everyone has a crap factor, he’d say, whether they know it or not.

That didn’t mean you couldn’t go fishing or golf with a guy who had a high crap factor. It’s just that when you see pictures of unbelievable fish held out to the camera (hint: look for hands that look like Andre the Giant’s in “The Princess Bride” to know that five-pounder was probably closer to two pounds) or hear about multiple birdies on the back nine, you had to take the factor into account.

Some background work by the magazine turned up a single marathon for Ryan, run in Duluth, Minn., in 1990, in a time of 4 hours, 1 minutes and 25 seconds. Runner’s World, suddenly at the center of the fact-check world on the campaign trail, confirmed that Ryan wasn’t even the owner of the fastest time by a GOP vice presidential candidate. That would belong to Sarah Palin, who ran a 3:59 at age 41. And, to be fair, the magazine again raised doubts about former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s claim that he once ran in the Boston Marathon.

By the weekend, Ryan was walking himself back. “The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin — who ran Boston last year — reminds me that he is the owner of the fastest marathon in the family and has never himself ran a sub-three,” he told Runner’s World. “If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight.”

Marathons being what they are — not exactly climbing Mount Everest, but still a lifetime achievement — runners who know not only their times, but also their splits, are still buzzing about the guy who missed his own best time by more than an hour.

That’s crap factor.

Of course, Ryan’s off-the-cuff marathon boast isn’t on par with, say, Xavier Alvarez and a fabrication that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court this year.

Alvarez was running for a seat on a municipal water district board in California when he presented himself as a retired Marine, with 25 years in the service, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor — the highest military honor you can get.

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His crap factor, it turns out, was particularly high. High enough for federal prosecution under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which targeted those accused of falsely saying they earned military medals.

“Permitting the government to decree this speech to be a criminal offense,” the justices wrote in the 6-3 decision, “would endorse government authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable.”

OK, a sub-3-hour marathon versus a Medal of Honor. Not quite in the same league.

But they speak to similar impulses and the desire to write our own stories, no matter how inconveniently the facts get in the way and convert the coolest parts of a narrative from ripped-from-the-headlines to bargain bin fiction.